Stanley Wong didn’t have to help try to solve Hong Kong’s land shortage, but he grew up in a squatter hut and knows what it’s like to be one of city’s forgotten
- Task Force on Land Supply chairman was living the retired life of a former banker, until the government came calling
- Now after 16 months of trying to find a consensus on the way forward he talks about abuse, staying humble, and not having any regrets
Stanley Wong Yuen-fai could have chosen to continue enjoying the cushy, retired life of a banker, but instead he accepted the challenge of leading the group tasked with mapping Hong Kong’s route out of its land shortage crisis.
For the past 16 months, Wong, chairman of the government-appointed Task Force on Land Supply, has been leading one of the city’s most extensive, contentious public consultations.
The exercise aimed to forge a consensus on the best ways for Hong Kong to plug a 1,200-hectare shortage it needs over the next three decades.
On December 31, the task force unveiled its long-awaited recommendations for ramping up land supply in the space-starved city, citing considerable public support for options such as massive reclamation, using part of the Fanling golf course for building homes, and a public-private partnership to repurpose farmland owned by big developers.
The biggest question now is whether Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor will adopt the recommendations, or give Wong and the task force the cold shoulder, only using the report selectively to fast-track the government’s own preferences.
